What's my chances - negotiating a new build price

Me and the missus are in the market to buy our first property.
While we would be able to comfortably afford a 3 bed we have decided to try and purchased a 2 bed new build.

The house was up for £124k and we asked them what their lowest price would be. They said it was £114k , so straight away we have got £10k off. This sounds good but as it is a new build this does not include carpets, turf, fencing or an over the bath shower.
We want all of these thrown in and I firmly believe that I could go in with a much lower price and get the above thrown in.
We would be willing to purchase it at £114k with all of the above included but we obviously want to get the price down!

What do you lot think my chances are?
Any tips for negotiating?

They are only currently building two of these 2 bed houses with about another 6 to follow over the next few years in a 160 house development.
I am going there this afternoon to offer £105k with all of the extras I mentioned thrown in. TSunday to ask how our 5 other viewings went.

All Comments

1. Offer 95K, dont justify the offer, just tell them you can proceed quickly, they will refuse, but then wait for their phonecall (It will come) and be prepared to come up to 105k
2. Offer 105k final offer, then let them sweat

The extras are worth sod all, dont fall for that one, max value of a grand if that. Also it will have cost them about 40-60k to build the house so they do have room to negotiate.

2 options(If you have deposit and mortgage in place):1. Offer 95K, dont justify the offer, just tell them you can proceed quickly, they will refuse, but then wait for their phonecall (It will come) and be prepared to come up to 105k2. Offer 105k final offer, then let them sweatThe extras are worth sod all, dont fall for that one, max value of a grand if that. Also it will have cost them about 40-60k to build the house so they do have room to negotiate.

And another £40-50k to buy the land
Make the offer and be prepared to have a long wait, end of time might pass before they ring you

If they have divided the land to accommodate 160 properties its unlikely unless they bought at the right time, sadly a lot of people buy houses with their hearts, and not their heads, the OP should be ruthless when buying a house, go in hard and dont get sucked in by the sales persons patter.

I got 60k of the asking price for this property I am in now, couple divorcing made the perfect opp for a bargain.

The thing is, we have our deposit but if we purchased the house we would not really have the money to put carpets in, and lets be honest concrete flooring in the middle of winter is no good!
We really want to get the deal done before the roof goes on. Once the roof is on we cannot decide what kitchen or bathroom we want.

@ whats the point - I see where you are coming from, the three bed is always better but we are thinking about being able to live comfortably and also being able to enjoy ourselves.

New build usually has a lot more margin than you can imagine. On an average house in the market for £115k, they cost to build it up would have been around £60k, of course depending upon the quality. We are of course in the market to make money and therefore they are never going to accept £60k cost price.

Be prepared to haggle around £100k for a done deal.

PM for free initial advise. Or if you can drop the postcode etc of the property, I should be able to give you a slightly better picture of the group behind the development.

I dont know where the OP is in the country, but near here there are a shed load of new builds, and prices have fallen dramatically, they have all sort of incentives, from flats at bogof, free carpets, tellies etc and even free cars.

The Op will be paying for at least the next 25 yrs, so there is nothing wrong with screwing the developer for every last penny, might be worth checking companies house to see how they are performing, send a few friends round to play with them.

Seriously OP dont get hung up on carpets, they really aren't that much of an incentive, when I moved here, I carpeted a 4 bed detached for 1.5k with wool carpets and the best underlay.

Before I bought this I offered on a new build, he should have bitten my hand off, as he went bust 6 months later. Shame really as it was the only new build I have ever seen that had some design thought put into it, rather than getting a set of dull plans from House r Us

Disagree with new builds struggling to sell, the amount of offers - 5% deposit gifted. e.t.c are encouraging people to buy new builds. We have just bought a 2bed house, and got £10k off what they wanted for it, luckly we exchanged contracts at this price, as they have now all sold (within 2 weeks), and next door had to pay the extra 10k. Developers aren't building many properties to counter-act the amount of people wanting to buy.

i'de go in really low and go from there, they will always counter offer you anyway, if you have a mortgage in lace ready then go for it, but as already said make sure that if interest changes you can still afford the payments, i think interest is going to be ok for now but i wouldn't say its gonna stay low for ever

i also wouldnt go in for the free carpets etc,etc until you have come to a price, when they give the final price and you really happy with it, then go in with you are happy to deal at that price and then throw in a few extra bits you would want

op where are you looking to buy? a new build price like that is pretty good, but like someone already said they are struggling to sell, when we bought our new build in 2004 it didnt have carpets, turf or much else for that matter, we had a valuer as we didnt think we'd have have problem with a new build from a local builder, how wrong we were, in 2006 we started legal action against the builder as there were so many faults with the house that wouldnt have shown up with a standard valuation, when we had a proper surveyor he found £45K worth of faults that he could see that was without the rat infestation in the walls and other things. he also said that big branded builders will offer you the earth to make the sale, so if you want carpets tell them, showers and fencing are standard on any new build these days,
it took us 4 years to get an end to it all and we won. before you commit to buying a new build get a survey done first.

well just an update.
i went to their offices yesterday and went in at 105k. They came back with a No, it was 114k with nothing thrown in. I went back with 106.5k and again it was no. I went back in with 108k he came back and said its 114k and he will throw in the shower, tiling over the bath and a screen. I said that's no good and said it £110k with all the above and Carpets. They came back and said no but they would do it for 114k with carpets/shower/tiling and screen. So he has gone from 114k with nothing to 114k with some extras. The only thing I want thrown in now is 1.8m hight fencing around the whole property and I would be happy with it all.

The problem is there is only two of these being built at the moment and I don't want to lose it as it realistically is our only option. their office opens at 11am and im hoping for a call from them sometime today but he doesnt seem very keen on dropping the price.

I tried to say that its heading towards xmas which is a notoriously quiet time for selling, factor into it all the budget news from a couple of days ago and people may think twice about buying for the time being.

Im stumped to be perfectly honest as to what the next step could be. I keep going back to the fact that for £114k it is essentially a good price and we are willing to pay that!

well just an update.
i went to their offices yesterday and went in at 105k. They came back with a No, it was 114k with nothing thrown in. I went back with 106.5k and again it was no. I went back in with 108k he came back and said its 114k and he will throw in the shower, tiling over the bath and a screen. I said that's no good and said it £110k with all the above and Carpets. They came back and said no but they would do it for 114k with carpets/shower/tiling and screen. So he has gone from 114k with nothing to 114k with some extras.

Just like the ad with the fat iranian, the english are dire at haggling. You have blown the haggling, all you can do know is get a good snagging list and get them to fix in invariable faults that will be there.

Yeah my friend and his family (2 children) have a new build house, thin walls, poorly constructed, and are hard to sell because most poeple know this and don't want them. We looked around several a couple of years ago and that was no different.

well just an update.
i went to their offices yesterday and went in at 105k. They came back with a No, it was 114k with nothing thrown in. I went back with 106.5k and again it was no. I went back in with 108k he came back and said its 114k and he will throw in the shower, tiling over the bath and a screen. I said that's no good and said it £110k with all the above and Carpets. They came back and said no but they would do it for 114k with carpets/shower/tiling and screen. So he has gone from 114k with nothing to 114k with some extras.

Just like the ad with the fat iranian, the english are dire at haggling. You have blown the haggling, all you can do know is get a good snagging list and get them to fix in invariable faults that will be there.

I pushed and pushed for getting more out of them. I have got more in terms of extras so in that respect I have done pretty well.

If it was me i would give them my final offer and walk away, being a 1st time buyer you should be in a strong position to get more than someone in a chain, you have to decide how much you want it really, as whilst you faffing about someone may offer asking and you may lose, so its all down to how much you want it really

If it was me i would give them my final offer and walk away, being a 1st time buyer you should be in a strong position to get more than someone in a chain, you have to decide how much you want it really, as whilst you faffing about someone may offer asking and you may lose, so its all down to how much you want it really

Op whats the most you are willing to pay for this house with the extras? as someone said dont forget your snagging list and make sure THEY FIX EVERYTHING on the list, dont forget to get a proper surveyor before you sign contracts.

Im sorry but even the new houses being built around us now are all coming with carpets, fencing as standard, showers as standard and even for an extra £5K they are offering kitchen white goods, decorated to your choice, carpets to your choice. the other thing to remember is if theres only 2 houses already built whats to say they wont stop building the rest. Personally hun i wouldnt touch a new build with a barge pole after my own nightmare experience .

Isnt there anything else in your area you'd consider? the house we bought in June didnt come up to the asking price but we haggled and the seller left all the white goods as they were under 6 months old ,all integrated, all the carpets again under 6 months old , fitted wardrobes which he was taking so for the extra £5k he left us over £8ks worth of items.
he also left all the receipts , warranties the lot. keep haggling with the builder if you are sure you want that house